


Something A Little Less Scooby Doo

by orphan_account



Series: Sherstrade Domesticity [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Doing up Greg's flat, Domestic, Domesticity, Home, Love, M/M, Shopping, Teasing, familiarity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 22:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9628883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Greg begins his annual leave with a day out with Sherlock, with the view to redecorate the flat together.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CindyLouWho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CindyLouWho/gifts).



> For CindyLouWho - I know this doesn't exactly match the idea you presented me with, but I hope that you like this little vignette of our shared imagination!

Sherlock stretched his body out, arms above his head and toes pointed, and groaned gratefully at the way his head dizzied from holding his breath in the blissfulness of the action. Beside him in the bed, Greg laughed, arching his head out of the way when Sherlock drew his arms back down and almost punched him in the nose. ‘Do we need to even move out of bed today?’ Sherlock asked, yawning with a wild yell to finish it off. 

Greg shook his head in amusement. ‘No,’ he said after a moment. ‘...although I was thinking about kicking off my annual leave with putting my stamp on this place, finally.’ He said the last word with a roll of his eyes. Two years he had had the flat now, since things had up-ended with Maggie and just before he and Sherlock made their life together. ‘That swirl-effect carpet through the lounge makes me want to vomit when I’m drunk.’ 

Sherlock laughed breathily, curling in against Greg’s side and resting his head on the bone of his shoulder. ‘I really do not want to march around some godforsaken home furnishing shop with you.’ 

‘Why?’ Greg asked, ‘It’s a chance for you to put your stamp on here too - besides your cigarette boxes always being in a pile on the breakfast bar despite me asking you to bin them, and the bin being two feet from the bloody thing.’ He slapped his hand against Sherlock’s buttock over his pyjama bottoms. 

‘You would never let me influence the style of your living space.’ Sherlock laughed loudly, snuggling his head against Greg’s skin. 

‘That’s a point - those red velvet curtains in Montague Street were fucking disgusting. I dread to think what your bedroom looked like back at Mummy and Daddy’s; something Victorian and Gothic I shouldn’t wonder.’ Greg teased, though he couldn’t escape the thought. Sherlock’s penchant for Dracula-esque style hadn’t slipped his notice. 

‘Lots of red and purple,’ Sherlock confirmed. ‘But that was my mother; she thought the more panelling and opulence, the more money it looked like we had. Mycroft has inherited her manner in that way.’ He rolled his eyes. 

‘I want none of that,’ Greg insisted. ‘Something clean and minimal - this place is too small. Get rid of the carpet, get some laminate; grey walls maybe, or navy.’ 

‘It sounds cold.’ Sherlock turned up his nose. ‘And why not red. Don’t men go in for red and black?’ 

‘Single men, perhaps. I’ve got you…,’ Greg pulled Sherlock against him. ‘Let’s go out - we can make it day; get breakfast, fish about, see what’s out there and make a decision on how we want _our_ home to look.’ 

Sherlock looked up, able to see Greg but distorted with the odd angle of his head. ‘Suck me off first?’ 

Greg laughed, roaring. ‘Well, when you ask me like that…’ 

 

 

Greg parked the car in a storefront bay outside of the Harvey’s outlet and dragged up the handbrake. ‘Stop pouting,’ he said without even looking at Sherlock. 

‘I don’t want to go in here,’ Sherlock pointed through the windscreen at the shop. ‘Overly made up women with legs up to their shoulders and lipstick on their teeth, trying to push a horrifically over-priced sofa and floral curtains that don’t match but she thinks will look _just perfect_ , and then she’ll say how her brother is gay and she loves it…’ 

Greg laughed loudly, ‘For somebody who was about ready to fall asleep from a powerful orgasm less than an hour ago, you are in one heck of a mood.’ He teased as he pulled the keys from the ignition. ‘And anyway I like the sofa I have, I’m not buying another one.’ 

‘It smells like stale smoke…’ Sherlock wrinkled his nose. 

‘...and it smells like you, too, so there’s no way I’m chucking it. It’s comfy, it isn’t wrecked and Febreeze will get rid of the smoke smell, or we could just stop smoking inside.’ Greg reached over and slapped his hand lightly on Sherlock’s thigh. ‘Out, c’mon. I’m gagging to see if you just nailed it perfectly for the poor woman who’ll end up serving us.’ He chuckled to himself as he climbed out of the car. 

They walked into the shop side by side and Greg braced himself as they slipped through the automatic doors and were smiled at, from behind the counter, by a young girl who almost perfectly matched Sherlock’s deduction. Sherlock’s eyes widened and he nudged Greg with his elbow, only to receive a shove to the left, toward the scatter cushions and bedding. Pop music played quietly as Greg moved toward a selection of swatches of carpet design and a wall filled with panels of laminate flooring styles. Sherlock fingered at the corduroy material on one of the swatches, liking the roughness beneath his fingers, and smiled up at Greg a little in embarrassment when he realised he was watching him. 

‘Dark or light wood for the floor?’ Greg asked, nodding at the wall before them. 

‘Mid brown - too dark and the place will seem even smaller.’ Sherlock balanced and Greg nodded in agreement. 

Greg stuck out his bottom lip in thought. ‘Wood effect or clean?’ 

‘Wood effect,’ Sherlock said quickly and reached up with his right hand and tapped his index finger against a panel above Greg’s head. ‘That’s good.’ 

‘Yeah,’ Greg agreed with a silent ‘I suppose’ inferred in his tone. ‘We could get a huge rug or something, put it under the table…’ 

‘Or get a different table.’ Sherlock said and twisted his lips. ‘Oh come on, it’s cracked on that one leg…’ Greg raised his eyebrows, waiting for Sherlock to say _’from when I flipped it in a bad temper’_. ‘...and it’s too big. Tables are good, but you need something smaller - dark wood, polished…’ 

‘Gothic,’ Greg shook his head. ‘Not happening. I like the chunky pinewood of that table. If we get a new one, I want it similar in style…just not broken.’ Sherlock nudged his entire body against Greg in an affectionate shove but stayed against him for a moment, enjoying the comfort. Greg wrapped his right arm around Sherlock’s waist, holding him there. ‘I do like that laminate though,’ he agreed honestly. ‘But I still think we would need a rug.’

‘Plain, or something out of _Aladdin_?’ Sherlock asked, lacing his hand over Greg’s where Greg’s fingers rested around his middle. 

‘There you go again with that rich boy, Gothic style,’ Greg pulled Sherlock against him, twiddling his fingers against Sherlock’s stomach in a tickle. ‘No, not anything like that. A plain rug - high pile, something soft but defining. We can put something plain on the walls and bring out the colour in the rug, and the curtains.’ 

‘Cropped in or full length?’ Sherlock asked, pulling himself out of Greg’s embrace to walk down a quiet aisle where pre-packed curtains and poles displaying drops and runner styles lined the walls. ‘Do you want those ring things at the top or are we going to have to buy them blood white peg things and hook them all in individually on those curtain tracks?’

‘Definitely tab-topped,’ Greg grimaced as he walked slowly behind Sherlock. ‘The rows I had with Maggie when we put up the nursery curtains…’ he said wistfully, but stopped himself. ‘And I dunno, what’s the difference between them being full length or not?’

‘Well, do you want them to the floor or just at the length of the window?’ Sherlock asked, gazing side to side, hoping his eyes would fall on something. He frowned as the music skipped and seemed to get a little higher, playing some godforsaken rap tune with a deep house beat. 

‘Floor, I guess…’ Greg said, thinking. ‘These are alright,’ He picked up a packed set of curtains in a deep coffee colour. The ticket on the front indicated they were tab-topped, full drop, and showed them to have a lighter colour of brown that ran across the bottom foot of the curtain with a light swirling pattern through it. Sherlock shrugged his shoulders and Greg raised his eyebrows at him. ‘What? They’re nice.’ 

‘They’re the colour of sick.’ Sherlock shook his head. ‘...and I thought you wanted grey.’ 

‘I just want something that isn’t bright orange or snot green that makes my head spin, or makes me think you and I are in an episode of Scooby Doo when I turn the lights off.’ Greg laughed to himself as he returned the curtains to the shelf. 

Sherlock picked up a set of burgundy curtains in a heavy linen material; the end panel, where the curtains would meet, had a simple strip of three lines - one gold, one grey and one black. Sherlock raised his eyebrows as he held them up. ‘Clean walls, deep curtains, and your pine furniture…’ he teased. ‘You said you wanted to pull the colour out in the rug and curtains.’ 

‘But it’s dark, Sherlock.’ Greg flicked his hand out, ‘Something lighter and we’re onto a winner.’ He walked up behind Sherlock and wrapped his arms around his waist, letting his chin rest on Sherlock’s shoulder. ‘Those are good,’ he pointed at another set as Sherlock set the ones in his hands down. Sherlock reached for them and drew them off the shelf. The picture on the front showed a meadow green set of linen curtains with a top and bottom panel that was a deep brown with a mock-leather effect. Sherlock turned them over in his hands. ‘What’d’you think?

Sherlock shrugged, nudging Greg’s head into his own, and then nodded. ‘Suit you, I think,’ he smiled. ‘Tick in the yes box?’ he asked, hovering as though he might put them back. 

Greg released Sherlock and took the curtains from him. ‘One down, shitloads to go,’ he smiled. 

They paced around the store, with Sherlock grimacing at every trinket Greg pointed to in the accessories aisle. Sherlock was a hoarder by nature, but trinkets without meaning - ie, special meaning - were worthless to him. They took up space, were simply items that could be broken or get in the way, and he didn’t see the appeal. 

Greg stopped walking before a floor lamp, around five feet tall, with a purposefully exposed light bulb make to look like a stereotypical light bulb. The base was chunky and wrapped in a mock leather coating that fit in well with the curtains tucked under his arm. Given the death of the glass lampshade that had previously dressed the now nude light he had at home, he liked the idea of this one - modern yet not clinical, thanks to the dressing on the base. He looked it up and down and then beckoned Sherlock over. 

‘...that is hideous.’ Sherlock said before Greg even spoke. 

‘Not a lamp shade in sight,’ Greg said, ‘Safe from you,’ he teased, poking Sherlock’s hip. ‘What did you have in mind? Something stained-glass, a Tiffany lamp, or a chandelier?’ 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes but didn't seem pissed. ‘I thought you might like that,’ he pointed to his right and Greg smiled in appreciation at Sherlock’s choice. Almost like a candelabra, the lamp had a solid pine base that was shaped to look like two books stacked on top of one another which then led into the light bulb - candle shaped - with a grassy corduroy lampshade, tall and cylindrical. 

‘That’s spot on,’ Greg nodded his head. ‘Well done, you… it’s not at all pretentious.’ 

Sherlock shook his head, ‘You’re a dick.’ He smiled. 

‘How about we take these to the till, price up the flooring and then grab a coffee at the McDonald's across the way? There’s a B&Q around the corner, we can find a paint that’ll fit.’ Greg offered, nodding toward the till at the front of the shop. Sherlock nodded at him, an almost longing look in his eyes at the mention of coffee. 

They walked quietly to the till, Sherlock carried the lamp whilst Greg tossed the curtains from hand to hand. Laying the items down, the store assistant smiled at them brightly. ‘Did you find everything you were looking for?’ she asked in a broad Scottish accent. 

Greg nodded, ‘Yeah, cheers,’ he smiled. ‘...can I ask,’ he pointed toward the flooring, ‘I wanted a price up on a laminate….’ 

The girl smiled and nodded her head enthusiastically, ‘Well everything in the laminates is twenty percent off. Which were you after?’ 

‘Six-two-B-H.’ Sherlock reeled off the product code and the girl looked at him in a little surprise. 

‘Some memory,’ She commented, typing the code into the till. ‘Um...dum-de-dum, that’s eight fifty per square metre,’ She looked back up and smiled. ‘Did you want to take it away today?’ 

Sherlock looked at Greg, hoping that he would say no - since the promise of coffee, Sherlock’s boredom level had crept up and his stomach had begun to gurgle in anticipation. His threshold for people had lowered and Greg could read it easily on his angular face. Greg shook his head, ‘No - thanks, but we’ll be back in the week.’ he promised, thanking her as she placed the scanned curtains and lamp into a large shopping bag. 

‘Eighty six pound ninety eight,’ She said with a smile, and held out the chip and pin machine to Greg. 

Greg took the items as he removed his card, slipping it into the back pocket of his jeans, and thanked the woman with a smile. He gripped the bag in his right hand and gave Sherlock’s coat a tug with his left. ‘C’mon, dolly daydream, I thought you wanted coffee?’ he muttered, shaking his head at Sherlock engrossed in reading the returns policy adhered to the counter. Sherlock stumbled a little over his feet and elbowed Greg as penance as they walked side by side out of the shop. ‘Let me throw these into the car first,’ Greg called out as Sherlock made a beeline for the pathway around the shopping park that would bring him out at McDonald’s. He paused, and waited, a foot or two away from the car, as Greg placed the bag into the boot of the car and clicked the central locking button to secure the car again. ‘You alright? You went funny all of a sudden in there.’

Sherlock shrugged his shoulders, ‘I’m okay; but you mentioned coffee and I didn’t realised I wanted coffee so badly.’ he smiled. 

Greg rolled his eyes, ‘You’re an arse.’ He reached down and captured Sherlock’s hand, crossing their fingers together, palms pushed together. ‘...feel a bit odd, buying things together, calling it _our_ house?’ 

Sherlock twisted his lips, ‘A bit, I suppose,’ he admitted. ‘I just didn’t ever imagine myself as the homemaking type - never thought that I’d want to. It feels a little bizarre to be twenty-five and setting up a home with you. Not that I don’t want to, I do…,’ 

‘Just in stages?’ Greg asked. 

Sherlock nodded, ‘In stages.’ 

‘How about we leave the paint, and rug, and do all that later. And let’s scrap the coffee,’ he stopped walking, his arm tugging a little as Sherlock continued on another step before realising Greg wasn’t moving anymore. 

Sherlock made a strangled noise in his throat, ‘Coffee…’ he wined. 

‘Let’s go and get lunch somewhere, kick off this annual leave with some real time together. We can go to that Italian place you like in Brixton. They’re Italian, they’ll have good coffee.’ Greg smiled, appealing to Sherlock’s tastes, and wiggled his eyebrows hopefully. 

Sherlock twisted his lips again and the broke into a smile, ‘Fine, but if you get that garlic shit you had last time, you can sleep on the sofa.’ Greg laughed, walking with Sherlock back toward the car. ‘Oh, I forgot, you like the bloody sofa…’ he wobbled his head as he mocked Greg. 

‘Unless you’re absolutely set on buying a new one, in which case you can fork over the money and I’ll argue with you about the decor.’ Greg teased him, squeezing Sherlock’s hand. ‘Because if I let you loose, I’ll end up with something ensconced, with dark wood feet and buttons...and something in a velvety red material, and I think I might want to throw up at the Buckingham Palace-ness of it all.’ 

Despite the jibing, Sherlock couldn’t help laughing. ‘I dunno - I think I like the sofa too.’ He said, still chuckling.


End file.
